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Pyramids of Giza in peril

Monuments of ancient Egypt have withstood the ravages of sand and time for four millennia,&nbsp; but now the modern woes of traffic, tourists, pollution - and too much camel dung - are taking their toll.

Egyptian tour guides like Kamel, seen here with his camel at the Giza pyramids last week, are part of the problems threatening the ancient monuments, experts say. (GORAN TOMASEVIC / REUTERS)

GIZA, EGYPT–They have survived sandstorms and desert stillness, the fury of kings and the ravages of time, but the legendary Pyramids of Giza are endangered now – and the agent of their peril is a gloomy Egyptian stable-owner by the name of Hesham el-Ghabri.

Or so you might think.

"They forbid us to ride around the pyramids," grouses the owner of the TWA Stable ("Camel and Horse Riding"), one of countless such tourist-dependent operations clustered in the shadows of the brooding Sphinx and the three celebrated Pyramids of Giza. "They accuse of us being terrorists. They say we are going to bomb the pyramids."

"They" are high officials at Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities – the government body responsible for administering the Pyramids of Giza along with the rest of this country's innumerable ancient monuments – and they have not actually accused el-Ghabri and his ilk of being terrorists, although perhaps they might as well have.

"The people here have been handed a gold platter – the pyramids," storms Dr. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the council. "Instead of guarding it, they (defecate) in it."

His solution?

Ban them all – the touts, the hawkers, the confidence men, the camel-for-hire stable-owners, and all the other privateering opportunists who have been a fixture here for decades but whose continued presence may be endangering the integrity of the monuments, while contributing immense quantities of camel dung.

"It's like a zoo here," says Hawass. "How can I make this place seem divine?"

It might sound like a petty squabble, but in fact a high-stakes battle is being waged out here on the western outskirts of Cairo, a central front in what is really a much larger war, a contest that pits the fragile glories of the ancient world against the relentless pressures of modernity.

Doused with airborne pollution, rattled by the weight of encroaching traffic, tainted by underground sewage, and encrusted with the accumulated salt of thousands of perspiring tourists, the wonders of Egypt's past are mired in a struggle that threatens their very existence.

Nowhere is that conflict being waged with greater acrimony or conviction than here on the Plateau of Giza at Cairo's western edge, where this voracious African megalopolis has all but consumed the most famous limestone jewels in Egypt's ancient crown.

You wouldn't know it from the tourist posters, which invariably depict the pyramids and the Sphinx against a lonely backdrop of desert sand, but in fact these structures are now within a 30-metre camel-ride of traffic-choked urban avenues and six-storey apartment blocks, bristling with satellite dishes.

The one-time hamlet of Nazlet as-Samaan is now a teeming urban district with a population estimated at about 200,000, with environmental problems to match.

Can a huge, modern North African city, with its cars and trucks, its factories and filth, its burgeoning humanity and woefully inadequate services, successfully co-exist with the ancient tombs and monuments of long-ago pharaohs?

Here in Giza, the answer seems plain.

"If you were to speak to any archeologist about the problems facing the pyramids," observes a diplomat in Cairo, "they will tell you, it's not good."

In fact, it's downright grim.

As if air pollution and sewage were not enough, the pyramids also have to contend with international pop stars, their amplifiers and their fans.

The experts say this is not a good thing. True, the pyramids and the Sphinx have endured the forces of nature for thousands of years. But, for most of that time, they have been sheltered from the elements by thick mantles of sand. Now they are exposed and vulnerable.

In February 1988, a 250-kilogram slab of limestone peeled away from the Sphinx's right shoulder and dropped to the ground below, an indication of just how much wear and tear the structure was suffering.

Authorities have performed considerable restoration work since then, but the combined effects of urbanization and tourism continue to exact a toll on the monuments.

In the face of all this, you might not think that a few camels or horses would cause much additional damage, but the Supreme Council of Antiquities wants the livestock gone just the same.

Hawass calls it a matter of "site management."

"I asked myself, `How can I protect this site?'" he explains during an interview in his downtown Cairo office. His answer: "I can build a wall around the site."

Not long ago, workers completed installation of a five-metre-high concrete and wire-mesh barrier that now surrounds the Giza Plateau and that is aimed at keeping the livestock out, along with the strolling vendors, the bogus guides, and all the other free-wheeling opportunists who have long scratched a living from the pyramids or the throngs of international tourists they attract.

"When you visit the pyramids, it will be a place of respect," vows Hawass. "The touts will be out of site."

True, the wall is firmly in place. Yet the touts remain, while the camels and horses continue to roam – and despoil – Giza.

Credit the determination of the local entrepreneurial class, and blame the venality of the Tourism and Antiquities Police, resplendent in their white uniforms, black berets and expectant pockets.

Several blocks south of the sole official eastern entrance to the pyramids, an entrance known as the Sphinx Gate, somebody has removed a three-metre wide section of the Supreme Council's new wall. The gap is being used by the camel- and horse-handlers and the touts to enter.

The only difference now is that everyone must pay baksheesh to the police in order to pass. In fact, an officer is stationed at the gap all day, precisely for this.

The bribes have cut heavily into profits, as has a steady reduction in trade – it seems many tourists are leery about the new arrangements – but the stable-owners are still in business and gangly dromedaries still plod among the pyramids bearing camera-wielding foreigners, while depositing the products of their ever-active alimentary systems hither and yon.

This is a galling circumstance for Hawass and the other members of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Hawass vows to close off all eastern access to the pyramids, once and for all. He means to shut the Sphinx Gate, while presumably repairing the unofficial gap in the wall, thereby restricting all admission to a new entrance located on the far western side of the plateau, about 10 kilometres away by car from the stables of el-Ghabri and his colleagues. If the plan works – a big if – it would cut off the stable-owners completely, along with the touts and the rest.

"They shouldn't do this," says el-Ghabri. "They have no right. Why are they doing this? I don't know."

But Hawass says he is bent on forging ahead. "When you are head of antiquities at a place like this, you have to have courage," he says. "The people are angry, but the pyramids are more important than the people."

Assuming they survive.

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